Dominik Szoboszlai has pushed back firmly against accusations that his celebration was aimed at Republic of Ireland supporters after Hungary\u2019s dramatic World Cup qualifying finish.<\/p>\n
The Liverpool midfielder reacted to Barnab\u00e1s Varga\u2019s 37th-minute strike that made it 2\u20131 by turning to the touchline, placing his thumb on his nose and waggling his fingers in a gesture that drew immediate attention. Ireland, inspired by Troy Parrott, recovered to win 3\u20132, moving Hungary down to third and taking the Green Army into the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Szoboszlai faced a wave of criticism on social media but moved quickly to set the record straight. \u201cThis is a joke between my own teammates, Andr\u00e1s Sch\u00e4fer, Barnab\u00e1s Varga and P\u00e9ter Szappanos,\u201d he told Blikk two days after the defeat. \u201cIf it was meant for the Irish, I would tell them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The midfielder was more concerned by the result than by any offence he may have caused. \u201cIt is still difficult to accept what happened,\u201d he sighed, \u201cbut unfortunately we have to live with it and move on. There is certainly a reason why this always happens to us, but we try to take the positives out of the most difficult times. We had a chance until the end, we believed that we could make the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
At club level Szoboszlai has remained influential for Liverpool amid a campaign that has seen the club\u2019s two most expensive signings struggle to match nine-digit transfer fees. The article notes Szoboszlai has produced displays matching the \u00a3100 million ($131.1 million) price tag Arne Slot slapped on his head.<\/p>\n
The arrival of Florian Wirtz might have threatened Szoboszlai\u2019s place, but injuries across the defending champions have offered him opportunities. He has covered multiple roles, even filling in at right back, and he has notable statistical contributions in the Premier League this season: he has taken more shots than Hugo Ekitik\u00e9, created as many chances as Florian Wirtz, and won more tackles than Ryan Gravenberch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Szoboszlai insists the gesture was a private joke with teammates after Hungary’s collapse. He said…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961,175,172],"tags":[1162,1215,1019],"class_list":["post-4552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-controversy","tag-creative-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}